Oil firm 'settles' toxic waste case

Oil-trading company Trafigura has said it has reached a settlement with 31,000 people in Ivory Coast who claimed they were made ill by toxic waste dumped around the capital, Abidjan.

Under the deal, which sees Trafigura pay the claimants nearly $50m, the alleged victims have accepted that there was no link between the deaths, injuries or miscarriages suffered and exposure to the waste, the company said.

In a joint statement issued late on Saturday, Trafigura and Leigh Day and Co, a British law firm representing the plaintiffs, said more than 20 independent experts had examined the case.

"These independent experts are unable to identify a link between exposure to the chemicals released from the slops and deaths, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, loss of visual acuity or other serious and chronic injuries," it said.

"Leigh Day and Co, in the light of the expert evidence, now acknowledge that the slops could at worst have caused a range of short-term, low-level flu like symptoms and anxiety."

'Not fair'

Leigh Day and Co has not independently commented on the settlement, which would amount to a $1,700 payout for each claimant.

But the Ivorian National Federation of Victims of Toxic Waste, which says it represents nearly all the victims, told the Reuters news agency that Trafigura was trying to push through a deal to avert a court ca

"Trafigura wants to excuse itself morally but it is not fair," Denis Pipira Yao, the group's president, was quoted as saying.

"The waste was toxic and lethal. Trafigura is proposing 750,000 CFA francs ($1,683) for each victim," he said.

"As people are poor in Africa, Trafigura is using money to get away with it. We are not at all happy with this way of doing business and we will work with our lawyers to make it clear."

In August 2006, Probo Koala, a ship chartered by Trafigura, dumped caustic soda and petroleum residues on city waste tips in Abidjan after first having attempted to offload the cargo in Amsterdam.

At least 17 people were reported to have died and more than 100,000 sought medical help after the illegal dumping took place, according to the Ivory Coast government.

Trafigura has repeatedly denied any connection between the victims' problems and the waste.

'Vindication'

Eric de Turckheim, the company director, said on Sunday that the settlement, which was signed the previous evening, "completely vindicates Trafigura".

"Over the past three years, the company has been the target of numerous attacks which have wrongly asserted that Trafigura's actions led to deaths and serious injuries," he said.

"These accusations have now been found to be baseless."

However, Transfigura did acknowledge that "the slops had a deeply unpleasant smell and their illegal dumping ... caused distress to the local population".

Mark Taylor, an Oslo-based international law expert, said that the outcome was expected, despite coming just weeks before the dispute was due to go to court in London on October 6.

"It is a settlement that was probably in the making for some time," he told Al Jazeera from Oslo, the Norwegian capital.

"It is quite common in these kinds of lawsuits for there to be negotiations before the court case and for the plaintiffs, in this case the people in Cote d'Ivoire [Ivory Coast], to agree with the defendants ... that will agree to drop the charges in exchange for compensation.

"With these kinds of settlements the plaintiffs, the people from Cote d'Ivoire and their lawyers based in London, are very often required to say nothing on the terms of the agreement.

"It may be that this is the last we hear about this case."

However, Taylor said that there were other cases proceeding in other jurisdictions, both in The Netherlands, where Trafigura has a presence, and in Norway, where a similar case but not involving Probo Koala is planned.

"It remains unclear what role the people of the Cote d'Ivorie, the 31,000 plaintiffs in this case, will have in those other cases," he said.

Trafigura had previously agreed to a $198m out-of-court settlement with the Ivory Coast government in 2007, which exempted it from legal proceedings in the West African country.

The US president has denies Russia missile role

barack obama has denied that objections from Russia influenced his decision to abandon the previous administration's plans to site a missile defence system in Eastern Europe.

Barack Obama said in an interview aired on American television station CBS on Sunday that it would be a "bonus" if the decision to scrap the plan eased co-operation with Russia.

"The Russians don't make determinations about what our defence posture is. We have made a decision about what will be best to protect the American people as well as our troops in Europe and our allies," Obama said on the show "Face the Nation".

The previous US administration under George Bush, Obama's predecessor, had planned the missile shield in Europe as the first line of defence against any attack from Iran.

Russia had condemned the project as a threat to its security despite years of US assurances to the contrary.

"If the by-product of it is that the Russians feel a little less paranoid and are now willing to work more effectively with us to deal with threats like ballistic missiles from Iran or nuclear development in Iran, you know, then that's a bonus."

Obama on Thursday announced that the US was scrapping plans to place the missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Alternative plan

The Bush administration had pushed hard for the shield, arguing that Iran was developing long-range missiles alongside its controversial nuclear programme.

Obama said that instead of a shield, there will be a different missile-defence plan relying on a network of sensors and interceptor missiles based at sea, on land and in the air.

His announcement raised questions of whether the decision was done in part to appease Russia and win its help in other areas, mainly in confronting the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, on Friday praised Obama's decision as "brave."

"Russia had always been paranoid about this, but [former president] George Bush was right, this wasn't a threat to them," Obama said.

Barack Obama to host Netanyahu-Abbas talks

The speeker of White House has announced that the US president will host three-way talks with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday.

Barack Obama is due to meet Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, separately before the three go into a joint session, the White House said.

The meeting is expected to take place in New York before a session of the United Nations General Assembly, the White House said, "to lay the groundwork for the relaunch of negotiations, and to create a positive context for those negotiations so that they can succeed".

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, welcomed Obama's personal involvement in the peace process, but indicated low Palestinian expectations for a positive outcome.

"At this point, I think President Obama must convey to the world that one side is undermining efforts to resolve the peace process," he told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

"This meeting is not about resuming negotiations. I don't think we will come out of this meeting with Netanyahu agreeing to resume negotiations or stop settlement expansion."

'Comprehensive peace'

Talks have been stalled since Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip last December and Abbas has repeatedly said that they will not restart until Israel commits to a complete freeze of settlement building in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

George Mitchell, the US special envoy to the Middle East, wrapped up a mission to the Middle East on Friday having failed to secure the concessions necessary for the peace process to resume.

He said that the three-way meeting planned for Tuesday showed Obama's "deep commitment to comprehensive peace".

Al Jazeera's John Terrett, reporting from Washington DC, said: "The general assumption was that George Mitchell was flying back to Washington a failure.

"After half a dozen trips to the Middle East he had failed to secure a trilateral meeting at the UN General Assembly next week.

"I suspect the Americans would have preferred to keep the drama going right the way through the opening stages of the General Assembly and out late as Wednesday or Thursday."

Netanyahu has repeatedly refused to commit to either a permanent stop to settlement expansion, as demanded by the Palestinians, or the year-long halt that Washington was believed to be calling for.

Instead he has suggested that Israel could be prepared to stop building new settlements for six months while negotiations resume.

'Commitments and agreements'

Maen Areikat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) mission to the US, said that no conditions had been attached to Tuesday's planned talks.

"We haven't laid down any conditions. We have been asking all along for all parties to meet their obligations," he told Al Jazeera from Washington DC.

"We Palestinians feel that we have met a lot of our obligations under previous commitments and agreements and phase one of the road map [for peace].

"Israel so far has failed to meet any of their obligations."

Areikat said that the efforts of the Obama administration were encouraging but "we will have to see what kind of discussions we will have on Tuesday".

But Akiva Eldar, the chief political columnist for Israel's Haaretz newspaper, said that it was Abbas that would be under pressure going into the meeting.

"He can't afford to go home empty handed again, and what I mean by empty handed is without a full commitment from the Israelis to stop all the operations in the settlements," he said.

"[Netanyahu] can come out of the meeting with President Obama and can say something such as 'we have agreed on some formula that will allow the settlers, especially those in Jerusalem, to maintain a normal life'."

More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements on land occupied by Israel following the 1967 war, land that the Palestinians see as vital to any future independent state.

'Unrealistic demand'

Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli national security adviser currently with the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, told Al Jazeera that the Palestinians' demand for a total end to all settlement building was ultimately impossible.

"The demand that there be a total and complete Israeli freeze not only in the West Bank as a whole, but including Jerusalem, was an unrealistic demand," he said.

"No Israeli prime minister could have agreed to that."

Meanwhile, Ismail Haniya, the deposed Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, condemned Abbas's decision to meet Netanyahu.

Speaking at prayers in Gaza for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, Haniya said "it does not obligate the Palestinian people to anything".

"No one is authorised, not the PLO nor anyone else, to sign any agreement that violates the rights of the nation and the rights of the Palestinian people."

Israel plans new settlements

Benyamin netanyahu theIsrael's prime minister is set to approve plans to build hundreds of new homes on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, before considering US demands for a construction freeze.

Aides to Binyamin Netanyahu said on Friday that the prime minister would consider a settlement freeze, but first planned to authorise the new building work.

The comments, quoted in Israeli media, are the first time an aide has said in the name of the prime minister's office that a freeze could be imminent.

The US said it regretted plans to approve additional settlement construction, saying continued settlement acitvity was incosistent with Israel's commitment under the roadmap.

"As the President [Obama] has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop," a statement from the White House press office said.

"We are working to create a climate in which negotiations can take place, and such actions make it harder to create such a climate."

The plans for new settlements are also likely to anger Palestinians, who have said they will not resume peace talks unless Israel suspends construction on lands they want for a future state.

Settlement dispute

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, criticised the Israeli move, saying "the only thing suspended by this announcement will be the peace process".

The row over settlements also puts Israel at odds with the US administration which, under Barack Obama, the US president, has been pushing for a settlement freeze.

Erekat said Israel had already responded "with total defiance" to US calls for a settlement freeze.

"The real Israeli official answer is being conducted on the ground by continuing the building of housing units and settlements."

But Danny Danon, a Likud legislator, said that Netanyahu can expect a fight over any decision to halt or slow settlement building.

"Most members of the Likud, most members of the coalition, don't think that what he's about to do is the right step," he told Israel Radio.

Government opposition

Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Jerusalem, said that Netanyahu was "being pulled in two directions" over the settlements issue.

"On the one hand, you have the Americans, Palestinians and the international community for that matter who are calling for a permanent freeze," she said.

"On the other hand, you have Netanyahu's own government really digging their heels in, some of whom are even threatening open rebellion if he stops construction."

Israel's Jerusalem Post newspaper quoted an unnamed aide as saying that as well as sanctioning new settlement construction ahead of a freeze, Netanyahu also intended to sanction the continuation of work on 2,500 housing units already under way.

In exchange for a suspension, Netanyahu would require the Arab world to take steps toward normalising relations with Israel, the aide said.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future state, along with East Jerusalem and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The number of Israeli settlers has steadily increased for decades and today about 300,000 Israelis live among about 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank.

England fall short against Aussies

It has only been two weeks since Australia lost the Ashes, but the Aussies made sure they made up for any lost ground by beating England by four runs in the first of their seven one-day internationals at the Oval in London.

England's spinners did well to restrict Australia to 260-5 but the tourists got an even firmer grip on the English run rate until a late flourish dragged the home side to 256-8.

England was jeered by the crowd for their slow scoring before a seventh-wicket blitz of 46 from 33 balls from Luke Wright and Adil Rashid made the score competitive.

Mitchell Johnson took three wickets in a 13-ball spell that cost just five runs to finish with 3-24.

Slow pitch

The target had looked attainable on a slow pitch but England quickly fell behind Australia's scoring rate as none of the top-order batsmen could build a game-changing score.

Only Wright, with 38 from 27 balls, Rashid and No 10 batsman Ryan Sidebottom seemed to fully get to grips with the conditions and situation.

In a sign of the difficulty facing batsmen on both sides, the only six of the match came from Wright in the 41st over of England's innings.

Ravi Bopara was the home team's leading scorer with a sluggardly 49 off 88 balls but his miserable summer, which included just 105 runs in seven Ashes innings and omission from England's series-deciding victory, continued with a stumping off the bowling of Nathan Hauritz.

England had lost captain Andrew Strauss (12), only playing because of the injury sustained in training by Joe Denly, and dawdled to 83-1 when Johnson at point plucked a reverse sweep by Matthew Prior out of the air to get rid of the No 3 for 28.

Paul Collingwood survived a run out chance off the first ball he faced in a mix up with Owais Shah, who scored 40 off 48 deliveries before the need to hurry meant he trod on his wicket trying to work a delivery by Johnson down the leg side.

With Bopara already out, Collingwood, seemingly reacting to jeers at the turgid scoring from the crowd, lashed out at Johnson to be dismissed for 23 from 39 balls thanks to Shane Watson's two-handed catch above his head.

Stuart Broad managed two from five balls before becoming Johnson's third victim, but with Rashid alongside him, Wright started hitting out to finally give an agitated crowd a few cheers.

Wright was run out off a no ball and Sidebottom's subsequent seven-ball 13 was in vain.

Rashid ended with 31 from 23 deliveries and also showed promise with the ball in his first ODI against a Test nation.

His figures of 10-0-37-0 helped limit the Australians, alongside Graeme Swann and Collingwood - who took two wickets.

Lucrative partnership

Cameron White and Watson shared an 82-run second-wicket partnership to lay the foundations for a total that hinged on Callum Ferguson's highest ODI score of 71.

Collingwood got rid of Watson for 46 and the second of two run outs accounted for White on 53 to leave Australia at 111-3, with Michael Clarke and Ferguson going on to build sizable totals - but not at speed.

Australia scored more than six runs per over from the eighth to the 18th overs, but then stayed at about half that rate until Rashid completed his overs in the 34th. The wrist-spinner was unlucky to have a leg-before-wicket shout against Clarke turned down.

Australia took the final powerplay in the 43rd over and Collingwood immediately removed Clarke for 45 to a catch by Shah before Michael Hussey was clean bowled for 20 in the 48th after charging down the wicket at Sidebottom.

James Hopes was the unbeaten batsman alongside Ferguson, chipping in with a useful late cameo of 18 from 11 balls.

The teams next head from south to north London for Sunday's second match at Lord's.

Renault facing FIA charges

Renault will face charges of fixing last year's Singapore Grand Prix by staging a crash that helped Spaniard Fernando Alonso win, Formula One's governing body announced.

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) said in a statement that Renault representatives had been summoned to an extraordinary meeting of its World Motor Sport Council in Paris on September 21, just before this year's Singapore race.

The charges levelled at Renault are that "the team conspired with its driver, Nelson Piquet Jr, to cause a deliberate crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix with the aim of causing the deployment of the safety car to the advantage of its other driver, Fernando Alonso".

If found guilty the team could be kicked out of the championship they won in 2005 and 2006.

Ecclestone warning

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has already warned the allegations could prompt Renault to walk away from the sport.

Renault, whose team boss Flavio Briatore co-owns English football club Queen's Park Rangers with Ecclestone, have made no comment on the allegations.

The team were accused of breaching article 151c of the international sporting code, which covers "any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally".

McLaren were fined a record $100 million and stripped of all their constructors' points for breaching the code in 2007 in a spying controversy involving Ferrari data.

Renault and Piquet, whose father and namesake was a triple world champion, parted in August and Brazilian television reported allegations about the Singapore Grand Prix last weekend.

Double world champion Alonso won the sport's first night race, his first victory in more than a year and from 15th place on the starting grid, after Brazilian Piquet crashed and brought out the safety car.

Alonso had just refuelled at that point, a lucky break for the Spaniard who was able to come through and lead to the finish.

Controversial

Ecclestone told the Times newspaper on Tuesday there was a danger of Renault following Honda and BMW out of the sport.

"All I know is Flavio is insisting he knows nothing about it," Ecclestone said, adding the Italian was "well and truly upset".

Renault replaced Piquet Jr in August after he failed to score a point in 10 races, a parting that triggered an angry reaction from the driver who accused Briatore of being his "executioner".

"If it's just young Piquet saying this because he wants to say it, that's one thing. If, on the other hand, there's some reality to it, then it's all different," said Ecclestone.

"It will be difficult to prove. If there is something on the radio that said, 'Er, Nelson, you'd better crash now,' then what the hell can they (Renault) do? It depends exactly what comes out of the investigation."

North Korea 'at final uranium stage'

N Korea is in the final stages of enriching uranium, the country's state media has said, a process that could give it a second way to make nuclear bombs.

According to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korean officials have informed the UN Security Council that the process of enrichment was entering "the completion phase".

The senior US envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said the enrichment claim was "of concern".

"I think for all of us, it reconfirms the necessity to maintain a coordinated position on the need for complete, verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," Bosworth said.

The country has already tested two plutonium-based nuclear weapons and has long been suspected of running a parallel effort to develop uranium-based weapons.

Reaction to sanctions

KCNA said the North's decision to push ahead with its nuclear programs was a reaction to Security Council's moves to tighten sanctions against the country following its second test of a nuclear weapon in May.

The report called the resolution a "wanton violation" of North Korea's sovereignty and dignity.

"We are prepared for both dialogue and sanctions," the report quoted a letter to the head of the Security Council as saying.

"If some permanent members of the [council] wish to put sanctions first before dialogue, we would respond with bolstering our nuclear deterrence first before we meet them in a dialogue."

The letter pointedly blamed the Security Council's decision to impose sanctions following its April rocket launch, while taking no action following one by South Korea last month.

"Had the UNSC, from the very beginning, not made an issue of the DPRK's (North Korea's) peaceful satellite launch in the same way as it kept silent over the satellite launch conducted by South Korea on August 25, 2009, it would not have compelled the DPRK to take strong counteraction such as its 2nd nuclear test," the letter said.

Agreements scrapped

The US, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea have been negotiating with North Korea for years in an effort to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for aid and other concessions.

However, North Korea walked away from the talks earlier this year, saying the so-called six-party process was dead and announcing that it was scrapping all previous agreements.

North Korea has said it needs nuclear weapons as a security guarantee against what it sees as the "hostile policies" of the US, which has 28,500 troops based in South Korea.

Balbina Hwang, a former US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, told Al Jazeera that North Korea's announcement was "reiterating the same message they have been sending since January, which is that they are not interested in six-party talks".

She said the North had decided the talks were not working for them, because it was going to force them to "a very critical step – namely were they going to give up their nuclear weapons or not?"

"What they're doing is telling the UN that sanctions will not work, that they will continue with weapons development of weapons of international rules, and instead that they'd rather deal bilaterally with South Korea, the US and China – because that's their best way of keeping the regime going and also being able continue with their nuclear weapons."

'Provocative'

South Korea's foreign ministry has expressed regret over the North's announcement, urging Pyongyang to return to the stalled disarmament talks.

"The North's move to continue provocative steps... can never be tolerated. We will deal with North Korea's threats and provocative acts in a stern and consistent manner," the ministry said in a statement.

Al Jazeera's Nick Spicer, reporting from the United Nations, said the North Korean statement will likely be seen as a defiant move, especially given that the US has just taken on the rotating presidency of the Security Council.

The US has said it will make non-proliferation the top priority of its time in the presidency.

Our correspondent says the North Korean announcement will also likely be seized upon by critics of the Obama administration to say policy that the White House's policy of engagement with North Korea and other so-called rogue regimes is a failure.